literature

Just Do Draft 1

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One of the most important things for an aspiring writer to accomplish is to just get that stupid first draft done. It really doesn't matter what you're writing—novel, short story, epic poem, screenplay, etc.—it's the writing itself that matters.

This always brings me back to my Novel Graveyard. It's a little place that only exists in my head with a bunch of unmarked plots where all the stories I didn't succeed at writing are sleeping off the effort of trying (don't begrudge them that, they did the best they could). Mainly those graves are filled with: (1) the first few chapters, (2) maybe some "call to adventure" if I wasn't still stuck on how cool ordinary life in my awesome world was, and (3) hazy notions of what the middle might look like, what the climax scene would be, and who would end up with whom. Really, these were the very fun sort of dreams I would talk to myself about while doing dishes rather than actually writing them down and making a story (but it's amazing just how useful a full sink of dishes can be to brainstorming). There's a great number of unwritten fantasy novels there, one or two featuring vampires, and one or two contemporary "high school" books (showing us that even the most sensible people can be taken in with literary trends). At the time I was writing each of these, they were My Book (or, in one case, Play). I'm not embarrassed over these half-baked novels because I'm the only one on earth who knows just how embarrassing they are.

But there's one thing that each novel had in common: I started it. It had been scurrying around in my brain for who-knows-how-long, and I was finally going to write it! It would be amazing! …And then I lost steam, got frustrated, left it alone, and it just sort of, well, ended (not with a bang, but with a whimper).

But there's not just the start-and-stop writers like me. There are those brilliant, incredibly dedicated people who can spend years and years and years and years on the same book, revising, redrafting, seeing it in different eyes as they age, getting better and even more brilliant. But never getting there. These are probably the type of people who have probably noticed every grammar error I've made so far. These people are probably much better readers than I am, and their writing (if ever published) will probably make Oprah's book club before mine. But after years of writing it, it's still sitting there… incomplete… wonderful, yet unable to be sent to a publisher…

Here's a breakthrough, and you know it's valid because the quote is from somebody you studied in school—"The first draft of anything is [crap]," so says Ralph Waldo Emerson. Who cares about the first draft? I HATE the first draft of my manuscript. But I don't have to say "story" or "book"—I can say "manuscript" because it's a finished piece of crap that I took a whole month to complete.

And as far as that month goes (thirty days to be exact), it was invaluable. It was NaNoWriMo (if the spelling doesn't indicate insanity from the first, the concept ought to). It was a challenge to write a 50,000 word book in 30 days. Who does that? Not perfectionists.

So I evicted mine. She's probably haunting the brain of some poor copy-editor somewhere, brewing dissatisfaction with paragraph structure. Sucker…

So I took my idea, which was amazing, and complicated, and so sellable, and beautiful, and gritty, in parts violent, alluring, and a whole bunch of other junk that most novels can claim, but mine was going to be better because I'm just that awesome.

I'm looking at the Color Coded Sticky Notes of Shame right now, which have been on my bedroom wall (right over my bed, which isn't a very restful feature) and over half the written scenes (indicated by yellow sticky notes) were in the freaking Introduction. I don't care who you are, no one wants to read that. I don't want to read that. That's why I have my little MS Word File "Changes from Draft One to Draft Two," where I listed all my lovely, quirky, interesting, and otherwise absolutely wonderful and genius characters who were getting the ax. That's how I phrased it in the file. "Sullivan's sisters—getting the ax. Sophia—getting the ax. Whole theme of furniture indicating status in Victorian Society—not just ax, but ye ole Kerosene Fire in addition to." And so on.

But that's me. It was liberating for me to get rid of characters and tangents that weighed down the plot from the basic 3 goals—one, slacker main character has to redeem himself (because I don't hold with slackers unless they're me or people I'm a fan of), two, have some awesomely cool magical battles, and three, villain dies bloody (though it was considerably clean in draft one…).

That's one of the problems with NaNo—they focus a lot on boosting word count, and less on making a high quality book. No, wait, that's exactly what NaNo is for! You cannot write a freaking awesome book like you know you have itching around in your skull in 30 days (I have met one published mystery writer who honestly, for a horribly demanding publisher and unforgiving schedule turned out mysteries—that her fans truly loved—in periods of time as short as a week, though usually in a month. You are not this woman, and don't even think about it.) You know what you can do in thirty days? Write some stupid junk with a few of the basic diamonds, extract the diamonds, and hammer things out in Draft Two. It's all about getting the novel finished. Go ahead, write 50K and realize that of that you can only use 10K or less. I recommend color highlighting on the computer. Another writer I know printed it all out and made meticulous notes in pen, one paragraph or page at a time. (I don't have the attention span for that, sorry. It's not colorful enough.)

Or maybe none of this is right for you. Who cares? I have a friend who's been writing for a long time (man, I seem to know a lot of writers…), she has this epic-long book, only the first in the series, her structure is way off, she has way too many characters (she actually said that one, not me), and the whole thing just keeps getting longer and longer. She's been writing it for years, and at one time planned on having it done by the time she was fifteen (she didn't even come close, or indeed came very close, depending on how those involved decided to look at it). But I've tried to talk to her about these things, and she dismisses me in a second. And honestly, it's no big deal, because every writer's process is different. Yes, this one time I managed to get 50K words out in 30 days. I don't know if I could do it again, and what I had at the end was nothing pretty to look at. But it was getting it done that mattered to me, so I could redraft as I needed to. My friend needed the long, sprawling process to write her long, sprawling book. I'm always finding new things I need to add, remove, change, fix, think about, and whatever else with my novel. My friend goes into her own little world and plays with the magic there. My writing is a combination of fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants inspiration where the best stuff comes out of nowhere, and some outlines and graphs for the formative stages and other junk, a lot of color coding, and a whole bunch of stuff that I won't bore you with now. Next to that is what I call "slogging through it" where I go back and try to make something beautiful out of what I have at my disposal—the ax helps with the uglier stuff. My friend? She NEVER has times when she and her novel are not on speaking terms. (I and mine have come to an agreement.)

One of my favorite authors to learn from is CJ Lyons, and one of the important lessons she taught me was "there are no rules." Nora Roberts is one of the most famous and most read romance writers around, and she breaks the romance rules (things like the main characters not getting together in the end, which ticks off readers unless the author is Nicholas Sparks). I might say "Just get the stupid book written, it doesn't matter how draft one goes," and you would be justified in saying "Shove off, that's not how I do things." You would be wrong, because you do just need to cut loose and get that stupid first draft done so you can move on to bigger and better things (like Draft -ohmyfreakingamazingness- 2, 3, and so on). But I can't tell you what your process is. I can only tell you things that I've learned to be true, right, expedient, et cetera.

…So, there's thirty-one days in July. Do you have something better to do? Every stinking day?
Ah, I never know what to say when it comes to Artist's Comments...

Basically, in my experience with writing, getting that first, ugly draft out is the most important step to getting the rest done. So, other writers out there, please stop revising what you already have, and feel free to put filler spaces in (I literally in Draft One have places where it says things like "At a fancy party. Slightly aggressive conversation, purpose of building tension. Will be written in Draft 2.), and just get it over with. Then you can have all the fun of making it pretty!

This piece, if everything goes well, is supposed to be for #TheCabalists.
My guidelines were to not be rambling (no idea how I did on that), slightly more anecdotal than instructional (hope I did well on that), and at least a page in length (roughly three times that). I’ve got to learn how to pare things down a bit…

I posted a journal a while back asking my many, many, many followers if they wanted the benefit of notes and lessons from all the writing workshops I attend. This actually didn't come from a workshop as much as personal experience (though there will eventually be something posted on drafting, rather than just the importance of finishing the manuscript in Draft 1).

So, hopefully I've brought you around to my way of thinking. If not, have fun with that novel. For as long as it takes...
© 2010 - 2024 ElaineRose
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